


Nothing Short of Monstrous

by digitaldreams



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Done for the Halloween mini-event at EmblemCon, Gen, Halloween, Scary Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitaldreams/pseuds/digitaldreams
Summary: On Halloween, Corrin, Azura, Ryoma, Hinoka, Takumi, and Sakura go to a haunted house with the intentions of exploring. However, their plans soon change in a drastic way, and they begin to suspect that perhaps the building's haunted title is far more than merely an epithet in the spirit of the season.*Written as part of Halloween 2020 EmblemCon's Spooky Stories panel event*
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 3





	Nothing Short of Monstrous

Corrin was the first to enter the haunted house, easing her weight into the door as it slowly creaked open. She was met with the low lighting of the entryway, and a grin spread across her features. “Come on in, everyone!” she declared, pushing the door wide enough for the rest of her companions to enter the building.

Azura was the first to enter the room, seemingly unbothered by what was taking place. Hinoka and Ryoma were next, their shoulders ramming together on accident when they stepped at the same time. They didn’t comment on such though, instead turning to see the last of the two members in their group. Takumi was taking up the rear with Sakura attached firmly to his arm, clutching at his limb desperately. If Takumi was bothered by Sakura’s clingy behavior, he chose not to bring it up.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Sakura questioned, her voice wavering with uncertainty. “We could get into some serious trouble.”

“This haunted house always opens at this time of the year. The objective is to let locals look around it to keep with the spirit of the season,” Hinoka pointed out. “We’re fine to come in and see what’s going on.”

“I personally would have liked to stay at the party a bit longer, but I guess it did sort of go downhill as soon as Camilla brought out another container of alcohol,” Takumi commented. He attempted to shrug, but he was unable to do so while Sakura was hanging off his side.

“Just think about it this way. We can tell the story afterwards about how much fun we have looking around here,” Azura smiled as she glanced around the rest of the entryway. “The low lighting really does sell the ambiance, wouldn’t you say?”

“It sells it a bit too well if you ask me,” Sakura muttered, shaking her head.

“It’ll be alright, Sakura,” Corrin assured her, reaching out to take Sakura’s shoulder in her hand. The younger girl jumped in instinctive fear, but Corrin shot her a reassuring smile to make sure that she understood that she was safe. Sakura sagged with relief upon realizing it was only Corrin, but her shoulders remained steady with tension.

“Why don’t we look around?” Azura suggested, gesturing for the rest of the group to follow after her. “Sakura, you can think of this as a way to get ready for the next time you want to listen to one of my scary stories. I know you’ve been trying to get better at not getting scared when I tell them.”

Sakura opened her mouth to offer a response, but she didn’t get the chance to. There was a distant flickering sound, and the room immediately went dark. Sakura let out a strangled cry, leaning up against Takumi even more than before. He yelped in shock, the circulation suddenly cut off to his hand. Still, he made no attempts to move her, either not seeing the point or realizing there was no way to get her off.

“The power’s out,” Hinoka sighed with a shake of her head. “I guess that we should just go. I don’t want to get caught up in any trouble. Besides, we can’t see anything anyways.” She pushed her way around Takumi to grab at the doorknob.

“We shouldn’t give up on our mission so soon,” Azura insisted. Light exploded from a small square within her hand, and she raised her phone to show that the flashlight had been turned on. “We could always find a place to sit down and tell scary stories.”

“No way,” Sakura immediately objected. “Hinoka’s right. We should just go on and get out of here. We don’t want to find anything bad, do we? It’s for the best if we just go now!”

“I’m with Sakura on this one,” Takumi said, his frown evident in his voice even in the darkness. “We should just go right now and leave this problem for others to take care of later. We could find trouble so easily if we aren’t careful about this.”

Hinoka let out a small scoff. “Are you scared, Takumi?” she questioned, her tone playfully teasing.

Takumi gasped in shock, his cheeks coloring immediately. He was thankful for the darkness masking his embarrassment from the rest of the group. “I am not!” he shouted, his voice echoing throughout the building’s lobby. “I can deal with any scary story that Azura throws my way!”

“Then why don’t we sit down and share stories?” Ryoma suggested, a smirk playing at his lips. “We said that we were coming here to have fun, and we can still enjoy ourselves even if we can’t look around the haunted house. There are more things to do in a place like this than merely explore.”

“I think that could be fun,” Corrin beamed. “I’m sure that we’ll be able to find a place to settle down and talk without many issues.”

“Is anybody concerned about how this is supposedly a legitimate haunted house?” Sakura questioned, her voice wavering once again. “I wouldn’t even want to come here in perfect lighting, so why would I walk in willingly while it’s this dark and there’s no power? What if our phones die? What if there are animals in here? What if--”

“You worry too much,” Hinoka assured her, resting one hand on Sakura’s shoulder as Corrin had before. Once again, Sakura practically leapt five feet at the gesture until realizing who the culprit was.

“If anything happens, we’ll be here to protect you,” Ryoma pointed out. “We’ve been there for each other up to this point, right? We can totally handle this too.”

Sakura glanced around, clearly still unsure, before letting out a sigh and nodding. She was outnumbered by a wide margin, and she didn’t want to go home on her own. She would spend the rest of the night worrying about her siblings anyways. It would be best for her to just go along and act as the voice of reason the instant anything went wrong. “Fine,” she mumbled, shuffling wordlessly as Azura led the group out of the entryway.

There was a living area off the entrance, and Azura settled down on a couch without hesitation. Corrin sat beside her with Hinoka closing in on Corrin’s other side. Ryoma decided to sit on the other side of the room on a similar couch, and Takumi did the same. Sakura awkwardly sat in between her brothers, unable to stop fiddling with her fingers. She reached for her phone, pulling it from her pocket to flip it over between her hands. It gave her something to do that wasn’t think about the situation at hand.

Azura’s flashlight was the only one that remained on. She tilted her phone to point it up at her chin. It cast a foreboding shadow across her features that made Sakura shudder. Hinoka leaned forward, resting her elbows against her knees to get a better view of Azura.

“Are we still sure this is a good idea?” Takumi questioned. He received suspicious glances from Hinoka and Ryoma, prompting him to sigh before continuing. “I already told you that I’m not scared. Quit looking at me like that.”

Before Takumi or Sakura had the chance to object further, Azura let a devilish smirk appear on her lips. “Our story takes place in a mansion much like this one,” she began, capturing the attention of her siblings in an instant. Sakura let out a soft whimper as she clutched at Takumi’s arm tighter.

Azura kept the group’s focus as she continued. “To many, the house seemed to be a rather odd one… After all, it was circulating in and out of the real estate market rather frequently. Buyers who wound up living in the house never seemed to be there for very long, and it was a constant cycle of people coming and going,” she explained. Her affinity for storytelling was enough to make even the exposition sound exciting.

“Why was the house like this? Why did it never remain bought for very long? There’s one explanation… It was haunted,” Azura continued with a smile. “A monster lived within the house, and when the inhabitants of the mansion weren’t looking, it would pick off each person one by one until there was no one left. After all, the building was the monster’s domain, and it didn’t take kindly to outsiders.

“Of course, no one was aware of this, so a real estate agent sold the house to a family just as her boss told her to. The family, consisting of a husband, wife, and three of their relatives, moved in without any further issues, unaware of the fate awaiting them. The home seemed to be perfect at a first glance, and that was just what had drawn them to it… The monster thought that it was just as appealing, and it was more than willing to get rid of any others for the sake of retaining its privacy.”

Sakura whimpered once again and curled against Takumi. Ryoma placed a reassuring arm on her shoulder, and she jumped at the contact before melting into it. The oldest of the siblings continued to stroke gently at her upper arm until some of the tension in her shoulders dissipated.

“It was the oldest of the group to vanish first,” Azura went on. “The husband’s father was a stoic old man, never one to call for help in his eternal sense of independence… The monster took advantage of this weakness and struck when there were no people around. Even if there had been others nearby, the old man wouldn’t have called for aid… He vanished without a trace, and no one knew what had happened to him.

“The wife’s older sister decided to report such to the police after the old man didn’t return. She reached for the doorknob to leave the house behind, but something grabbed her from behind. Her phone clattered to the ground as she was taken, leaving no other clues behind that she had disappeared at all. No matter how much her relatives searched, they weren’t able to get closer to finding the truth.”

Takumi was starting to grow paler, something visible even in the low lighting provided by Azura’s phone. He pulled Sakura in a bit closer, but if she noticed, she didn’t comment on it. After all, with how nervous she was, she could have simply believed that it was a gesture meant to reassure her. Her angle prevented her from seeing Takumi’s face, so she didn’t realize how much terror Takumi was trying to mask in that moment.

“The husband’s younger brother disappeared third, and the husband and his wife were left clinging to each other in terror. Everyone who had come into the house with them had disappeared, and who could say what would happen next? There had been no evidence of any other creatures existing within the house, so what was snatching them up from the shadows?

“Neither of them had ever believed in the supernatural, but it seemed to be the only option for them. The wife suggested that perhaps it was a monster, but the husband denied such. Just to prove that it was real, the monster took him next, and the wife was left in stunned shock that her lover had just disappeared from her arms. She curled over herself in tears, overcome with grief since she believed that she would never see her husband again.”

Concern was starting to appear on Corrin’s face as well. She was used to hearing Azura’s scary stories since the two had been roommates in the group’s shared apartment for quite some time, but this was something different. Perhaps it was the atmosphere. Regardless of the cause, she couldn’t bring herself to sit still, and she bit down on her bottom lip. It was just a story, after all, so there was nothing for her to worry about… Right?

“As the wife cried out in fear and sadness, the monster took her as well. There were no signs that the beast had been there at all, and the home was left abandoned. The residents were never seen again, and it’s still unknown what happened to them… It was the latest event in a cycle that has been going on for many years. Who can say who the next victims will be?”

Ryoma didn’t realize that sweat was beading on his forehead until it slipped down his cheek. He frowned inwardly but made a distraction for himself by looking over at Hinoka, who didn’t seem to be doing much better. When he surveyed the entire group, he realized that they were all nervous to some degree. Some were handling it better than others, but the fear was most certainly noticeable.

“Every twenty years or so, the circle of events starts over from the beginning. The house is abandoned for ages after the previous residents go missing. People stay away from the building, believing that it could be haunted. Real estate companies take an interest and decide to sell it to anyone interested… Then, another family moves in, and they fall victim to the monster’s schemes.

“Some might say that this is that very house. Of course, there would be no evidence to back this up, but at the same time… There was no evidence that the monster was real either, and yet, it most certainly was. What could happen next? Only time will be able to tell.”

Azura dropped her phone away from her face, expression passive despite the terrifying tale she had just weaved for the group. “What did you think?” she asked. The shift in mood left the air tense enough to be cut with a knife or perhaps the claws of this unknown beast.

Nobody dared to speak for a while. Sakura was the first to break through the silence. “I-I got through the story…!” she declared proudly despite how visibly she was shaking. Her grip on Takumi’s arm was starting to grow stifling.

“Nothing like that is going to happen. It’s just a story,” Takumi announced, though it was easy to see that he was trying to convince himself just as much as the rest of the group.

Corrin flicked her hands open into palms on either side of her face. “Boo,” she whispered, the sound traveling slowly and eerily across the room.

Takumi jumped at the word and glared fiercely at her. “Corrin!” he snapped, though there was no real malice to his tone.

Azura and Hinoka started to laugh at his sudden yet drastic reaction, and not even Ryoma could keep a smile off his face. Corrin snickered under her breath, but all of the sound came to a sudden halt when a creaking noise split the air. The room was left oddly silent again, and each of them wondered if the sound was real or merely a figment of their imagination invoked by the atmosphere.

“What was that?” Sakura questioned, trying and failing to keep her voice from shaking. She swallowed dryly and glanced around for an explanation, but none of her siblings were able to offer her with one.

Azura was the first one on her feet, and she turned on her phone’s flashlight once again. “Maybe we can explore the mansion after all… I know it’s not what we were planning on doing, but we can still see what caused that noise,” she suggested.

At her words, Ryoma, Corrin, and Hinoka all rose to their feet. Takumi looked to Sakura with eyes that told her he was going to be moving whether she liked it or not. She eventually went along with it, but her grip on his arm remained just as tight as it had been before.

Nobody spoke as Azura led them away from the living area of the house. Before they knew it, they were walking up the stairs to the second floor. Takumi slowly shook Sakura away from him, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her grip tightened on her phone, and she turned on the flashlight, distracting herself with sweeping its illumination along the dark hallways. Her hands were trembling, and the light shook as a result.

“I don’t see anything that could have been responsible for that noise,” Corrin remarked after what felt like ages of searching. “Maybe we should just go on and call it there. We’ve been here for a while, and as much as I love looking around places like this, I don’t want to freak Sakura out too much.”

“Thank you for finally seeing reason,” Takumi declared with an exasperated sigh and roll of his eyes. “We should have gotten out of here ages ago, but you all just had to sit down and tell scary stories.”

“Are you scared or something?” Corrin questioned. She started walking toward Takumi, a mischievous grin spreading across her features.

“Of course not. What do you think I am, a chi--” Before Takumi had the chance to finish the sentence, he let out a scream, and the sound echoed mercilessly throughout the halls of the mansion.

“He disappeared!” Sakura shrieked. “It’s just like in the story!” She turned around in the blink of an eye, sprinting further down the hallway while using her phone’s light as guidance. Her cries could be heard even as she grew further away.

Footfall followed after Sakura as Ryoma, Hinoka, Corrin, and Azura chased her. As much as they hated to admit it, the possibility of Takumi having truly gone missing was seeming more realistic by the second, and Corrin couldn’t help but wonder if Azura’s terrifying story was coming true just as Sakura had feared.

Sakura didn’t stop running until she had fully run out of energy. She was doubled over with one hand against her chest as she breathed heavily, her shoulder pressed firmly against the wall. She let out a shriek of surprise as the rest of the group came into view before letting out a sigh of relief upon realizing that they weren’t the monsters she had feared them to be.

“What are we going to do about Takumi?” Hinoka questioned. If one looked closely, it was clear to see that she had grown significantly paler than before.

The five fell silent for a moment before Ryoma let out a sigh. “I’ll go back to see what happened to him,” he announced. “I’m sure that there’s a logical explanation for all of this. People don’t just disappear.”

“They did in the story,” Sakura murmured, and deep down, while she knew she sounded ridiculous, she was starting to believe it. Azura’s stories unsettled and terrified her on the best of days, but the shady ambiance was starting to get to her, and she wasn’t sure of how much more she was going to be able to take.

“How about this?” Corrin asked. “I can go with Ryoma to make sure that nothing bad happens to him. I’ll be his backup.”

Nobody had the chance to object before both Ryoma and Corrin had pulled out their phones and started to walk away. The two disappeared into the shadows of the house at Corrin’s suggestion, and an eerie silence fell upon the three girls who were left.

Sakura began to regain control over her breathing pattern as time crawled on, but Ryoma and Corrin didn’t return. Hinoka and Azura had been silent, making it seem as if it had been even longer since the two vanished, but Sakura believed firmly that it had been ages.

“Do you think something happened to them?” Sakura inquired nervously. She didn’t even want to speak the words out of fear of making them real, but she needed to assure herself that everything was fine. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding mercilessly against her ribcage until she was sure they were alright.

Hinoka opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off by a hissing sound. “I wonder if that’s them,” she murmured. Another hiss echoed throughout the area. “Alright, that’s it. I’m going to see what’s going on there.”

“What if something happens to you too?!” Sakura cried out, throwing one hand out to cling onto Hinoka’s lower arm desperately. “We already don’t know what happened to Takumi, Ryoma, and Corrin! What about you?!”

“It’ll be fine, Sakura. I’m sure that everything is alright,” Hinoka told her, but somehow, the words were far less reassuring than they should have been. “You stay here with Azura. I’ll be back here as soon as I’ve figured out what’s going on, and you’ll see that it’s nothing more than just a story, okay?”

Hinoka didn’t leave time for Sakura to protest. The redheaded girl pulled out her phone, flicking on the flashlight, before slinking into the shadows the same way Ryoma and Corrin had. Sakura watched her go with a whimper, and her heart continued to scream in her ears.

Sakura watched the clock of her phone, seeing the minutes pass by far slower than they had any right to. She swallowed nervously and closed her eyes, almost as if she believed that she could force herself to wake up from this nightmare if she tried hard enough. Azura wrapped an arm around her shoulders slowly, and Sakura leaned up against her side carefully. The contact was far more comforting to her than it had any right to be.

“Do you think they’re going to be okay?” Sakura questioned softly. The words didn’t want to come out, but she forced them free of her lips anyways.

“I’m sure of it,” Azura replied, a delicate, angelic smile on her face. “They’re strong people. The story was just a tale I concocted for the sake of having fun. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Sakura didn’t realize that she was crying until tears began to slip down her cheeks. “I want to go home,” she admitted numbly, praying that perhaps she could convince the tears to disappear if she refused to acknowledge them. “We’ve been here for long enough, and I don’t want anything else bad to happen.”

Another creaking sound pierced the air, and Sakura shrieked before pushing herself further against Azura’s body. The blue-haired young woman pulled Sakura in tighter. “That sounded like a floorboard. It’s all fine,” she cooed, her fingers gently stroking down Sakura’s head. “It’s a perfectly logical explanation, and it happens to a lot of buildings this age. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Azura was moving before Sakura had the chance to stop her. The younger girl whimpered as Azura led her away from their safe place and deeper into the mansion. A door creaked open as the girls walked into a new room, and Sakura felt her stomach twist into a gigantic knot. Something about the space bothered her.

Sakura’s fears came back tenfold when there was another clicking noise. She let out a scream and threw her arms around Azura’s torso as the lights flickered on and off before finding a home in the lit position. Illumination flooded the room, and both girls blinked violently in an attempt to clear the spots from their vision.

“I told you it was alright, Sakura,” Azura murmured. She slowly removed Sakura from her arm before walking to the far side of the room.

A black cat was curled up on the ground, licking at its paws with a passive expression. The cat looked up at Azura with fierce green eyes before bounding past both her and Sakura to disappear into the darkest recesses of the house.

“It… It was a cat?” Sakura questioned, her eyes wide. Her heart began to slow to a normal pace.

“That explains the hissing sounds,” Azura commented. “It wasn’t a monster at all… You know, unless you consider a sweet little cat like that to be a monster.”

Sakura let out a sigh of relief. “I guess I jumped to conclusions… Sorry for getting all clingy,” she whispered, shifting her gaze to the ground with a frown.

“It’s alright,” Azura assured her with a bright smile. “Let’s go and see what happened to the others. I’m sure that they’re fine as well. We have the power on now as well, so that should make it easier to find them.”

Sakura nodded and followed Azura into the hallway. The two hadn’t been walking for very long before Hinoka came into view, a smile on her face. “Hey again,” Hinoka greeted simply before closing the distance between herself and her sisters. “What happened to you two?”

“I could ask you the same thing!” Sakura cried out. “I was so worried when you went off into the rest of the house and didn’t come back!”

“My phone died,” Hinoka explained, holding up the device with a light shrug. “I couldn’t determine how to get back without a flashlight, so I decided to stay where I was until I could figure out the way I came from.”

“See, Sakura?” Azura said, nudging the younger girl with her elbow. “It’s all fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“You’re right,” Sakura admitted, but she was still on edge from spending so much time running off adrenaline. She practically tossed herself at Hinoka before embracing her sister. Hinoka watched her in stunned silence for a moment before returning the gesture a short while later.

Footsteps echoed throughout the hallway, and Sakura broke off her embrace with Hinoka to see who the culprits were. Three familiar silhouettes appeared before rounding the corner. Corrin and Ryoma both had smiles on their faces, but Takumi was scowling intensely as he shoved pieces of dust away from his clothing. A string of vulgarities left his mouth until he realized that Sakura, Hinoka, and Azura were watching.

“What happened to you?” Azura questioned, looking at Takumi. The lower half of his body had more dust on it than was natural, and he looked surprisingly ruffled.

“I fell through a weak spot in the floor,” Takumi explained, crossing his arms with a bitter frown. “I remember that the person taking care of this place mentioned the floor being unstable, but I didn’t think that it was this bad. I thought it would be a little creak here and there at the worst, but I underestimated it severely.”

“Pulling him out was much harder than you would expect,” Corrin told the group with a strained laugh. “Given that it was so dark, Ryoma and I had quite a few problems with it. We couldn’t hold our phones and help Takumi at the same time, so it took far longer than we had been hoping.”

“There’s nothing to worry about though,” Ryoma said quickly upon noticing the concerned expression on Sakura’s face. “I know it’s frightening to think about, but we were able to get him out, and he’s unharmed.”

“I’m going to need to take seven showers before I feel even remotely clean after that… I’m going to have to wash my hair all over again too,” Takumi muttered with a shake of his head.

“We’re all back together though, and I think that’s what matters most,” Corrin declared. “How about we go on and call it a night? I feel like we’ve had a rather eventful evening, and I could certainly use some rest after all that.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Hinoka grinned. The six began to make their way towards the door at her words, and they were all quiet as they navigated to the exit. The floorboards creaked beneath them, proof that Azura had been right when she suggested the origin of the squeaky noise earlier in the night.

“It’s funny how that all wound up being similar to the story,” Sakura admitted. “I mean, it was absolutely terrifying at the time, but… It’s something funny that we can laugh about after this.”

“Do you think you’re going to be able to hear more of my horror stories after this?” Azura asked teasingly. She fell into pace alongside Sakura in anticipation of her reply.

“Nothing could scare me after that,” Sakura said confidently, a laugh breaking through her lips. “There’s nothing to worry about now. I can listen to a thousand of your scary stories now.”

“Everything being like the story sure was a funny coincidence though,” Corrin commented. “One by one, we disappeared.”

“Of course, the culprit wasn’t a cat in the story,” Azura chuckled. “Perhaps that’s for the best in the end though.”

Ryoma opened the door of the mansion and gestured for everyone to walk through. Once all five of his siblings had left, he trailed after them, shutting the door behind himself.

“That sure was an interesting adventure,” Sakura declared. “I’m glad that it’s over though.”

Collective laughter rose up from the party as they began their journey away from the building, the house that they were sure was not haunted after their adventures that night, and towards their own home. It continued to stand unmoving and eerie behind them.

Inside the building, the black cat that called the space home let out a hissing sound. It sounded like a growl of frustration, but no one was around to identify it as such. The cat examined the nearby area before starting to prowl around the building like a predator stalking their next victim.

The cat’s emerald eyes briefly flashed an unmistakable crimson color when it came to a stop at the top of the stairway. Another hiss forced its way from between the cat’s teeth, but this time, it was not the sound one would expect to hear from a feline. In fact, it didn’t seem to match any particular animal.

It sounded nothing short of monstrous.

The beast continued walking around the building before coming to halt when it found a suitable patch of shadows. It stalked into the darkness, seeming to disappear in the blanket of blackness. The cat, the monster, vanished from sight and closed its eyes, enmity swirling around it. It was time to wait for its next prey. Those six were the first to escape its clutches, but the next people to wander into its home would not be so lucky… 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone!
> 
> As I said in the tags of the piece, this story was written for the 2020 Halloween mini-event for EmblemCon. I was selected as one of the writers, and I had an amazing time putting this together. I hope that you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
> 
> If you want to read more Fates content from me, I have only one strong recommendation, and that would be my [Fates Story Rewrite.](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1246397) I've been working on reconstructing the game's plot for quite some time now, and I'm rather proud of how it came out. If you were around for the first EmblemCon, I did a panel about it back then, and the convention was just as fun back there as it is now. Regardless of if you choose to check out that story or not though, I greatly appreciate you for clicking on this story and giving it a try. I hope that you enjoyed yourself! Happy spooky season, everybody!
> 
> -Digital


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